Sleepers | Powernap

While we were in Vegas in July for a short two-day vacation, we stayed at the Bellagio. I booked everything through Am-Ex travel so the I could get the standard set of upgrades through my particular card. We drove there from LA with the puppies who we were boarding near the strip and then headed straight over to the hotel to check-in.

Somewhere along the way, while booking the rooms, I had managed to book through the “standard site” and not the “concierge” which meant I didn’t get the standard set of upgrades, I didn’t get the late check out, I didn’t get the included breakfasts, I didn’t get the whatever. Everything was messed-up. On top of it all I’ve got tired kids and wife who just want to head down to the pool and the latter of which just wants her bikini, a sun chair and a pina colada.

After two hours on the phone, I’m still no closer to rebooking the rooms and the folks at the check-in desk give us a temp pass to the pool so they can get rid of the kids running around the check-in desk. I’m walking everyone down to the pool, so-pissed that I can’t ever speak. I’m seriously just grunting at this point, communicating with a series of gestures, guttural sounds and “fucks” all strung together in unintelligible bat-shit craziness. My cheeks and ears are burning red, partly because of anger but also because of the radio waves oozing out of the iPhone that’s been lodged in my ear for heading on two hours surely radiating my brain, microwaving it into oatmeal.

Everyone has questions. I hate questions. “Are we checked-in,” “Can we go to our room,” “Why did we have to wait so long.” I’m shutting down, I can feel it. The irritation is spilling over with both the family and the woman on the phone–the fourth woman with two first names I’ve talked to in the past two hours (who have whispered sweet nothings in my ear about Am-Ex company policy and the do’s and don’t of online booking but decidedly unlike her three previous three useless counterparts) appears to actually want to help me fix this clusterfuck. At that exact moment when I’m about to blow my top, at that precise second when it’s totally unbearable for even one more second, THAT’s when I see this guy. He’s got a cheap suit on and a convention entry pass haphazardly thrown down by his feet when he collapsed into the chair by the exit to the pool that he’s currently sleeping in. I dropped the luggage that I forgot I was carrying, say to the woman on the phone that she has to hold for a second and framed this picture.